Soon we can forget about Chris Christie. He is term limited. He will be gone. But here is typical Christie. All state beaches are closed because of a stalemate on the state budget. But Chris Christie went to a state beach with his family because the state owns a beach house. The beach was gloriously empty. Just for him and his

Charter schools lain they are public schools. They are not. What public school is part of a corporate chain? What public school operates for profit? What public schools charges fees for service? The KIPP schools in Houston have been

There is one super-smart columnist writing in Esquire, and his name is Charles P. Pierce. He gets it. Unlike the editorial boards of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, he understands that schools don’t get

A California public high school received a grant of $10 million from Laurene Powell Jobs to redesign itself. Guess what? They have gone whole hog for “ personalized learning. ” Known on this Blog as Depersonalized Learning. This is where the computer mines your data all day long and you develop a close relationship with the computer. Meanwhile the giants of Silicon Valley send their own children

We have had an interesting conversation on the blog about the value of AP courses. It was tied to Jay Mathews’ use of AP courses to rank the quality of high schools: the more AP courses, the better the high school. I have made clear two points: One, when I was in high school in the 1950s, there were no AP courses, so I have had no experience with them; and my children graduated high school withou

I often hear AP lauded because it enables students to get through college in only three years, thus saving a year of tuition. What if college were free? Would there be such a rush to get it over with? What’s the purpose of college? Why four years? Why not three or two or one or none? A few years ago, a very rich guy offered 10 students $100,000 not to go to college. I haven’t heard how that turne

YESTERDAY

At the NEA representative Assembly in Boston, President Lily Eskelsen Garcia brought some 8,000 delegates to their feet as she denounced Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump for their abandonment of America’s most vulnerable children and public education. ““This is not a drill,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García told the 2017 NEA Representative Assembly. “We stand in a dangerous place. We stand between

Who owns the world? The Establishment at play, as reported by Politico. Frenemies. “OUT AND ABOUT IN THE HAMPTONS — LALLY WEYMOUTH held her annual summer party last night at her house in Southampton. There was a long gold carpet entrance from where the parking was to a big tent next to her house. She served champagne, rare filet, fried chicken, cornbread, a big chocolate cake, ice cream and cooki

This morning, Trump tweeted an old video of himself pummeling a wrestler after the wrestler was thrown out of the ring. The wrestler taking Trump’s blows is labeled CNN. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 7/2/17, 9:21 AM #FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg I see this as a direct incitement to violence against the media and anyone who dares to criticize King Donald. I reported this tweet

Dr. Michael Hynes, superintendent of the schools in Patchogue-Medford on Long Island (New York) really knows what “whole child education” is. I wish he were advising Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, who throw the term around, as in “whole child personalized learning.” Hynes could set them straight. They could start by reading this article, which appeared in Newsday. Hynes recommends this start

I recently read a post by Larry Cuban about the difficulty of “scaling up successful reforms,” and I was reminded how much I dislike the application of industrial terminology to schooling. Larry offers some examples of successful efforts to “scale up,” but I question the effort itself. While it is possible for schools to adopt and adapt a program or a practice that has worked out for others, the

Mike Klonsky reports that most schools in Chicago are violating the right of English language learners to mandated services they need. The worst violators, naturally, were charter schools. Fifteen were run by the UNO Network of Charter Schools; nine were run by the Noble Network of Charter Schools. (One of the Noble Network schools is named for its patron, Governor Bruce Rauner.) In 2009, U.S. Di

NPR reported that 100% of the graduates of a struggling high school are going to college. Usually, we hear this about charter schools, but they usually forget to tell you how many students dropped out before reaching 12th grade or graduation. Nor do they refer to test scores. Urban Academy in Chicago, for example, is celebrated in the media for getting 100% of its graduates into college but the s

James C. Wilson reflects here on the intellectual arrogance of people who know nothing about education but decide they should reinvent it. The list of the arrogant would include certain foundations and philanthropists, certain